Our View: DCF reforms long overdue

Wednesday

Apr 30, 2014 at 6:00 PMApr 30, 2014 at 6:46 PM

The tragic deaths of two infants and a young boy have brought longstanding problems of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families to the forefront. It's clear that the agency responsible for intervening in family crises is in crisis itself. Given the high stakes involved — the well-being of the commonwealth's children and families — there is no time to waste to address it.

Herald News Editorial Board

The tragic deaths of two infants and a young boy have brought longstanding problems of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families to the forefront. It’s clear that the agency responsible for intervening in family crises is in crisis itself. Given the high stakes involved — the well-being of the commonwealth’s children and families — there is no time to waste to address it.

The body of 5-year-old Jeremiah Oliver was discovered recently, following the months-long disappearance of the Fitchburg boy under DCF care. Even before the body was discovered, multiple investigations sought to find out how police were not made aware of the situation — even though Oliver and his relatives had not been seen since September. Three DCF employees were fired and a fourth disciplined in connection with the failure. A social worker assigned to the family missed several visits and opportunities to check on the family.

Then, a 4-week-old baby from Grafton was found dead after DCF misplaced a fax from Grafton police regarding possible harm to the baby. Just this past Saturday, a 2-week-old whose family was being monitored by DCF was pronounced dead at a hospital after her parents brought her there.

Although all three of those deaths occurred in Worcester County, systemic failures at DCF are a statewide problem. Those problems include a caseload crisis — an issue which social workers rallied to call attention to recently in a series of statewide protests. From March 2013 to March 2014, caseloads were up from 30,006 to 35,066, but staffing levels did not increase. In Fall River, there was a 25.7 percent increase in cases during that time — from 1,125 to 1,428 cases. But social worker staffing not only didn’t keep up, it decreased by nearly 7 percent.

Meanwhile, communication remains a problem in the agency, with outdated technology only further hampering DCF’s ability to stay on top of cases. There is no good reason staff in this day and age should not be able to access real-time data and share information between agencies. At least partially due to the fact no one at DCF received or acted on a fax from the Grafton Police Department regarding possible harm to 4-week-old Aliana Lavigne, the baby was found dead. This is unacceptable. In 2014, why are police departments still using faxes to alert DCF to potentially life and death situations?

Fortunately, there are some positive developments under way to fix this broken agency. More staff have been brought on in recent months. The Legislature and the Patrick Administration have secured $2.8 million in supplemental funding for the department, with an additional $9.2 million proposed to hire and train more staff and give the agency a much-needed technology upgrade.

With new leadership to be installed following the resignation of embattled DCF Commissioner Olga Roche and new reforms bolstered by more funding being put into place, DCF has an opportunity to turn over a new leaf. The agency ought to develop an immediate action plan to initiate further reforms as quickly as possible. DCF has a responsibility to reform so that it is properly equipped to protect the precious young lives and vulnerable families it is charged with protecting.